With two newly renovated museums, nationally recognised exhibitions, partnerships with major institutions and a Lonely Planet “Best City to Visit in 2025” endorsement, Toulouse’s cultural and touristic landscape has never looked healthier.
In the run-up to French local elections this month, the city’s incumbent mayor Jean-Luc Moudenc has been campaigning on his solid track record in culture and heritage, embodied by the reopenings late last year of Le Château d’Eau, the city’s public photography gallery, after a €4m overhaul, and of Toulouse’s largest museum, Musée des Augustins, after a renovation costing €25m.
Toulouse has long thrived thanks to its aeronautical industry and student life. But as its population grows, putting it on track to overtake Lyons and become France’s third-largest city in the next few years, city authorities are striving to ensure it also becomes a fixture on Europe’s cultural tourism map.
It has not always been viewed as a cultural destination, even for the French. Although Musée des Augustins houses unique Romanesque and Gothic sculpture ensembles, a comprehensive painting collection and a splendid abbey cloister, its fame rarely extended outside the Occitanie region.
“Toulouse grew up on its own, far from Paris,” says Laure Dalon, the director of Musée des Augustins. This tradition of autonomy is one explanation for Toulouse’s historically low exposure on the French cultural scene. A lack of infrastructure and investment is another.
Alexandre Durand, Toulouse’s top culture official, points out that, unlike cities further north, such as Lille or Nantes, Toulouse has not suffered war destruction or industrial crises. “Those ills created opportunities [in those cities], necessitating the repurposing of vacant spaces and the development of new activities. There is no such equivalent in Toulouse, and therefore no massive investments in the cultural sector.”
Nonetheless, Durand adds, “There is indeed a revolution going on.” In the last decade, annual attendance at Toulouse’s heritage sites, including the Saint-Raymond archaeological museum, the Paul Dupuy Museum of Decorative Arts, and the city’s Romanesque jewel, the Saint-Sernin Basilica, has nearly trebled, to 1,265,254 in 2024 from 462,685 in 2015.
Appointed director of Musée des Augustins in 2022, Dalon was quick to convince the city council of the need to overhaul the museum, as the extension work that started in 2019 had become mired in delays. The new galleries make the six-year wait well worth it. Under the monumental height of their glass roof, the two painting salons display the most visible modifications, while the 19th-century exhibition spirit remains. “When I compare the new rooms with old photos, I reckon our display is easier to look at and less overwhelming,” Dalon says. White panels and clear, concise wall texts alongside inviting sofas make these Old Masters rooms places where the public wants to linger.
Colour clash
But the museum’s renovation has also stoked controversy in a city where regional identity is a serious matter. The bone of contention is a long beige stone wall along Rue de Metz, Toulouse’s high street, which houses the museum’s new entrance. This extension has been criticised for clashing with Toulouse’s traditional colour palette: the soft red of exposed brick.
“This ‘Pink City’ identity is actually rather recent,” Dalon says. “Bricks were covered with lime until the 18th century, and stone was the noble material used for public monuments and entrances.”
If the Toulouse “revolution” has a flagship, it is certainly Les Abattoirs. Like its counterparts, the local contemporary art museum has experienced increased footfall since it opened in 2000, reaching 200,000 annual visitors in recent years. Les Abattoirs, housed in a former slaughterhouse, has found an eye-catching formula: accessible exhibition topics and invitations to figures outside the contemporary art realm, such as the fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac or the Toulouse rap star Oli.
“We want to share societal, engaged matters through ‘popular culture’,” explains Lauriane Gricourt, the museum’s director. In March 2024, as France was experiencing widespread farmer protests, Les Abattoirs inaugurated its Artists & Farmers exhibition. A partnership with London’s Hayward Gallery for a Mickalene Thomas show last summer caught the attention of the Grand Palais, which brought the show to Paris. “Usually, Parisian exhibitions travel to regional museums,” Gricourt says. “It is quite rare to see it happen the other way around.”
But Toulouse still has much to do: half of Musée des Augustins awaits a costly second phase of renovation. And it still lacks a temporary exhibition space. The vitality of Les Abattoirs hides a very sparse local art scene, despite the presence of a state art school. Heavy investment in heritage landmarks does not conceal the worrying state of many residential buildings in the city centre.
And in a highly centralised country, Toulouse’s biggest flaw remains its remoteness from Paris—around 650km to the south—an immutable fact, even as a high-speed train route to Toulouse is in the planning stages.
